The pilot steers with a chart of the river before him, and relies
partly upon his experience and partly upon the delineated route.
Sometimes channels used at high water are not navigable when the river
is low, and some are favorable for descent but not for ascent. In
general the pilotage is far more facile than on the Mississippi, and
accidents are not frequent.

The peasants always came to the bank where we stopped, no matter what
the hour. At one place where we took wood at night there was a
picturesque group of twenty-five or thirty gathered around a fire; men
and women talking, laughing, smoking, and watching the crew at work.
The light, of the fire poured full upon a few figures and brought them
into strong relief, while others were half hidden in shadow. Of the
men some wore coats of sheepskin, others Cossack coats of grey cloth;
some had caps of faded cloth, and others Tartar caps of black
sheepskin. Red beards, white beards, black beards, and smooth faces
were played upon by the dancing flames. The women, were in hoopless
dresses, and held shawls over their heads in place of bonnets.

A hundred versts above Sofyesk the scenery changed. The mountains on
the south bank receded from the river and were more broken and
destitute of trees. Wide strips of lowland covered with forest
intervened between the mountains and the shore. On the north the
general character of the country remained. I observed a mountain,
wooded to the top and sloping regularly, that had a curious formation
at its summit. It was a perpendicular shaft resembling Bunker Hill
Monument, and rising from the highest point of the mountain; it
appeared of perfect symmetry, and seemed more like a work of art than
of nature. On the same mountain, half way down its side, was a mass of